You can use the create-react-app package or create an empty PyCharm project and install React in it.

Generating a React application with create-react-app

Create React App is the recommended way to start building a new React single page application. As a result, your development environment is preconfigured to use webpack, Babel, ESLint, and other tools.

Starting with an existing React application

If you are going to continue developing an existing React application, open it in PyCharm and download the required dependencies.

If the application sources are already on your machine Click Open on the Welcome screen or choose File | Open on the main menu. In the dialog that opens, select the folder where your sources are stored.

If the application sources are under version control

Click Check out from Version Control on the Welcome screen or choose VCS | Check out from Version Control on the main menu.

Select your version control system from the list.

In the VCS-specific dialog that opens, type your credentials and the repository to check out the application sources from.

To download the dependencies Open the embedded Terminal (View | Tool Windows | Terminal) and type npm install at the command prompt.

To get code completion for React methods and React-specific attributes, you need to have the react.js library file somewhere in your project. Usually the library is already in your node_modules folder.

Completing React methods, attributes, and events By default, the code completion popup is displayed automatically as you type. For example: In JSX tags, PyCharm provides coding assistance for React-specific attributes, such as className or classID, and non-DOM attributes, such as key or ref. Moreover, autocompletion also works for names of classes defined in the project’s CSS files: All React events, such as onClick or onChange, can also be completed automatically together with curly braces (={}): Completion also works for JavaScript expressions inside curly braces. This applies to all the methods and functions that you have defined:

Completing HTML tags and component names PyCharm provides code completion for HTML tags and component names that you have defined inside methods in JavaScript or inside other components: Completion also works for imported components with ES6 style syntax:

Completing component properties PyCharm provides code completion for component properties defined using propTypes and resolves them so you can quickly jump or preview their definitions: When you autocomplete the name of a component, PyCharm adds all its required properties automatically. If some of the required properties are missing in the usage of a component, PyCharm warns you about that.

Using Emmet in JSX

With PyCharm, you can use Emmet not only in HTML but also in your JSX code taking advantage of some special React twists. For example, the abbreviation div.my-class expands in JSX to <div className=”my-class"></div> but not to <div class=”my-class"></div> as it would in HTML:

Navigating through a React application

To jump to the definition of a method or a JavaScript expression inside curly braces {}, select the method or expression and press Ctrl+B.

To jump to the definition of a component, select the component name and press Ctrl+B.

To view documentation for a component, press Ctrl+Shift+I.

Linting a React application

To customize the list of inspections, open the Inspections page: in the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), choose Editor | Inspections. Disable the inspections you don’t want to see or change the severity level from Warning to Error and vice versa.

All the PyCharm built-in code inspections for JavaScript and HTML also work in JSX code. PyCharm alerts you in case of unused variables and functions, missing closing tags, missing statements, and much more: For some inspections PyCharm provides quick-fixes, for example, suggests adding a missing method. To view the quick-fix pop-up, press Alt+Enter.

Using ESLint

Besides providing built-in code inspections, PyCharm also integrates with linters, such as ESLint, for JSX code. ESLint brings a wide range of linting rules that can also be extended with plugins. PyCharm shows warnings and errors reported by ESLint right in the editor, as you type. You can also use JavaScript Standard Style with ESLint.

To have ESLint properly understand React JSX syntax, you need eslint-plugin-react. With this plugin, you are warned, for example, when the display name is not set for a React component, or when some dangerous JSX properties are used: To get started with ESLint in PyCharm

Refactoring a React application

Besides the common PyCharm refactorings, in a React application you can also run Rename for React components: Place the cursor within the component name and press Shift+F6. Below is an example of renaming a component that is defined and used in only one file: In the same way, you can rename components defined in one file and then imported to another file using a named export:

Running and debugging a React application

Only for applications created with create-react-app.

Only for applications created with create-react-app.

The recommended way to start building a new React single page application is Create React App. Only in this case your development environment is preconfigured to use webpack and Babel. Otherwise, you need to configure a build pipeline first.

To run a React application In the npm tool window (View | Tool Windows | npm), double-click the start task. Alternatively, select the task and choose Run 'start' on the context menu. Thanks to the Webpack Hot Module Replacement, when the development server is running, your application is automatically reloaded as soon as you change any of the source files and save the updates.

To debug a React application

Start the application in the development mode by double-clicking the start task in the npm tool window.

Wait till the application is compiled and the Webpack development server is ready. Open your browser at http://localhost:3000/ to view the application.

Copy the URL address at which the application is running (http://localhost:3000/ by default), you will later need this URL when creating a debug configuration.

Create a new JavaScript debug configuration: choose Run | Edit Configurations, click , and choose JavaScript Debug from the list. In the Run/Debug Configuration: JavaScript Debug dialog, paste the saved URL (http://localhost:3000/) in the URL field. Save the configuration.

Set the breakpoints in your code and start a debugging session by clicking next to the list of configurations.

Alternatively, select a test file in the Project tool window and choose Create <file name> on the context menu.

Some known limitations

When you open an application during a debugging session for the first time, it may happen that some of the breakpoints in the code executed on page load are not hit. The reason is that to stop on a breakpoint in the original source code, PyCharm needs to get the source maps from the browser. However the browser can pass these source maps only after the page has been fully loaded at least once. As a workaround, reload the page in the browser yourself.

If you are using webpack-dev-server from Webpack version earlier than 2, it is recommended that you disable the Safe write feature in PyCharm. Otherwise the application won’t be updated on-time when changed. This issue is fixed in Webpack 2.